Building a Large Linux Knowledgebase

linuxfan writes "It looks like LinuxQuestions.org is aiming to build the largest independent Linux-related knowledgebase using a Wiki. They are using the same software as Wikipedia (MediaWiki), are using a Creative Commons license and look to be off to a good start."

Comments

All you'll ever need to know...

[ackthpt]

void main()
{
printf("42");
}

They have that....

[JustinXB]

It's called Google.

Re:They have that....

[ciroknight]

I know this a stab at being funny, but...

The truth is pretty simple. Google's not enough. Sometimes for the most obscure questions, either most people consider you a nub and tell you to RFTM (which, in many cases, no manual exists), or they don't know themselves how to solve the problem. So, we often spend hours and hours going through google to find out how to get X hardware to work on Y configuration to find that Alan Cox had brilliantly broken my soundcard in 2.4.20... These are the kinds of things that there really should be a one-stop place to find what you need..

Surprisingly, it's taken this long for anyone to realize this...

Re:They have that....

[JungleBoy]

You just need to click on the 'groups' tab in google. :) So many linux mailing lists are piped onto usenet, that just about every question asked shows up there. Essentially google groups lets you globally search nearly all linux mailing lists.

Re:They have that....

[timeOday]

The other big problem is that information goes rapidly out of date.

Say you need to make a file over 2GB (very common in video processing) and you stumble across this page. You come away thinking linux doesn't support large files, when really it does. In this case you can scroll all the way to the bottom and the author is nice enough to have timestamped the page - 1998. But still, how do you know whether the old information is outdated? Even if you choose some arbitrary cutoff date ("information after Jan 1, 2003 is likely to be fresh") how do you tell google to only find information after that date? You can't.

Unfortunately there's no easy solution to the problem of outdated information. Useful documentation takes attention and manpower. But perhaps an easily modifiable Wikki-format will encourage more updates and more participation than comparable efforts such as The Linux Documentation Project, which is really just a smattering of FAQs, HOWTO-s, guides, and man pages with no real coherence - full of duplication and stale information.

Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Dark Lord Seth]

What about The Linux Documentation Project? Provides plenty of knowledge to me about pretty much anything Linux related...

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem with the Linux Documentation Project is that it tends to have a lot of outdated information there.

The Wikipedia should be more up-to-date.

Then again - I just Google. . . . .

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Daytona955i]

I agree... LDP has gone down in quality over the years as linux has gotten more popular. Outdated stuff stays up and their site is a pain to navigate and search. I mean, how many different kinds of tutorials do you need? You have HOWTOs in both regular and mini sizes though authors really don't do anything different. (like making the mini ones shorter and to the point) Then you have Guides which are more like books. While they may have their use, I have never really found one on a topic I need an explanation for. (Especially that in-depth) Therefore I'm more likely to look at a book for information of that scale first as they are usually better. And again, a lot of times if you do find something that might be useful, it's mostly out of date. Then you have FAQ's... There aren't that many and I doubt questions obout the topics listed are really asked all that frequently.

I mean it's a nice idea and most of the guides that were around when I first started using linux (about 9-10 years ago) were excelent. In fact, some of them are still useful but they need updating!

TLDP also needs a redesign of their site. Maybe have a section for newbies and then other sections based on what you want help on instead of just grouping all the HOWTOs together. It's a beast to look through. If I want to find information on an editor I need to know to look for vi or Emacs.. it would be nice to click on an Editors section and see all the documentation relating to editors.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Mr. Piddle]

Anyone can update the wiki.

I can't wait to see the changelog for the article, "So, Which Linux Distribution is Right for Me?"

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[bgeer]

I am probably out of date and things are much better now, but I (and probably a lot of other people) have an aversion to anything named a HOWTO after spending many futile hours trying to decode them in the mid-to-late 90s when there was no other help available.

For those of you who mercifully missed out on this era, generally a HOWTO would

(a) Point you to software that no longer compiled on any platform known to man

(b) Advise you to use configuration options that existed only in development versions and never worked even then.

(c) Assume that you know how to use an equally complex program that has its own HOWTO which points you back to the one you started with.

(d) give great explanations like: Ok for this file you just use syntax like a=1 to set a equal to 1. For example to make it fly to the moon just type:
$foo53r45$::564.config <-> FALSE
DiskBo$xInvolvement.Underpantsgnome = $PROFIT$

etc...

I am exaggerating VERY slightly. Anyone remember the DIP HOWTO? According to legend the suicide rate among Linux users tripled within three weeks of its release.

Great!

[AtariKee]

This is a great idea for those of us who find certain aspects of Linux a bit daunting. Between outdated HOWTOs and sometimes cryptic MAN pages, newbies such as myself can get a bit frustrated.

My hope is that this database doesn't grow out of control with redundant and/or meaningless data.

Re:Great!

[Raagshinnah]

"My hope is that this database doesn't grow out of control with redundant and/or meaningless data."

yeah, another slashdot would be too much for the internet to handle

Re:then...

[Anonymous Crowhead]

What if google dosent deliver?

If there is no answer on Google (groups that is), then there is no question.

rats!

[theMerovingian]

The one thing keeping me from switching to Linux has a topic, but no one has posted any information there.

Does linux gaming work, or do you just have to play Neverwinter Nights over and over? (reply some good stuff here, and stick it in the wiki, too).

Re:rats!

[bersl2]

A few extra things:

The Loki installer for Unreal Tournament is still freely downloadable, for those with the Windows version. You can play that.

The binaries for Quake and Quake 2 are still linked to glide (I think). Fortunately, both games' source is under the GPL, so you can recompile for GLX.

There are many ATI drivers (XFree86, ATI's binaries, DRI, Gatos), but none of them do everything well (or so I've heard). NVidia's drivers are wonderful, but binary-only ([sigh]... NDA...). I wish they were able to let us help with the drivers. XFree86's nv driver is still pretty good.

You can use WINE to play many games non-native to Linux, like Half-Life (Damn You, Valve!(TM)), but it usually takes some tinkering. There is WineX, a commercial fork of WINE that specializes in getting games to work.

Finally, just have a look around; you'd be surprised at what's available.

Software Knowledge = Hard

[darkmeridian]

This sounds like a good idea. However, there are two issues that would hinder something like this:
1. Variability between Linuxes. There are many distros out there and they all have their own ways of doing the same things.

2. Variability within Linuxes. Different distros also change their commands between versions. Any knowledge-base specific enough to be of help would have to be extremely thorough. A person working with a 2.4.22-gentoo-r3 kernel, for example, might have a different kernel than someone with the vanilla 2.4.22.

However, if enough knowledgeable people use the system, then it will hopefully conquer these problems and be useful. But for now, see the gentoo forums for what open source documentation done by a community is capable of. (However, this is only within one distro that is relatively new so it has an easier time of things.)

2.

Re:Software Knowledge = Hard

[dbIII]

1. Variability between Linuxes. There are many distros out there and they all have their own ways of doing the same things.

It's not as different as you might think, so long as you don't try to apply visual memory of where menu items go on a button (ie. the MS Windows approach). The first time I used Redhat after using only slackware I found that only a few config files were in different spots, same with debian. My linux knowlege meant that I could do things the first time I sat down at an Irix, Solaris and AIX system. The difference between widely seperated varieties of *nix are far less than the differences between Win98 and any type of WinNT in terms of the commands you use. So long as the answers aren't to click on the third widget on the left, the knowlege can be applied across the board - after all, you can use RPMs on debian and do apt-get on redhat.

Different distros also change their commands between versions.

Often the answer is to run the old command, or download it again. Linux does not suffer from "DLL hell", while the default behaviour of rpm is to replace old libraries, if you really need them you can keep them. I have a jigsaw game on my machine that was last compiled in '96, so long as it can still find the original libraries it runs, and everything else just uses the newer version of those libraries - that's why they have names like somelibrary.6.2.so

Re:Software Knowledge = Hard

[ciroknight]

Truthfully, I've never used Gentoo (I don't desire to compile every piece of software by hand), but I've found that most of the time their forums are actually quite helpful. Why? Because someone down the line of creating Gentoo thought they should drop their elitest "I r t3h m4st0r h4xx0r" attitude and actually help people. This has been one of the reasons Linux has such a poor adoption rate, even though it's on the shelves right next to Windows in most cases.

There are plenty of more reasons behind Linux's adoption rate, but think about it this way; if Microsoft and all of it's software was found to be illegal and everyone had to switch over tomorrow, how many governments, how many libraries, how many volumes of people would never touch a computer again because learning new software was too hard, due to people who knew how to use it feeling superior? GNU is all about sharing the knowledge, it's really time that we linux users take to the meaning of the GPL, and not just use it as a license to throw in people's faces.

19 Articles!!!

[Timesprout]

Without wishing to sound too sarcastic, you are going to need a tad more than 19 articles to convince me you have a valid knowledge repository. I'll stick with the Linux Documentation Project for the moment thanks

yet another wiki

[tronicum]

Of course you can never have enough wikis. Question if how different they are and how they will do moderation (if they do)

Wikipedia is a projekt driven by an community, LinuxQuestions.org is somewhat unclear to characterise: not clearly a community only or a business company selling ads within their content.

As on always you should read the Rules before posting. registration is required, but email is optional.

Wikis everywhere

[koody]

It seems like wiki's would be the future of content creation on the web. It's becomeing increasingly popular, just look at the growth rate of wikipedia. Now volunteers are documenting tips and instructions for mozilla in a knowledgebase.

Wiki's seem to bring together the reasons why the web is seen as useful (disregarding the free pr0n). Easy content creation, accessibility and ease of use. With wiki's you get the added benefit of a central repository to look for the information you need.

As wiki's grow and become known the need for search engines might lessen. The first resort for information will change from google to the relevan wiki. Google will be seen as second in importance. After all, wiki has the structure of yahoo with the benefits of quality content.

Re:To clarify!

[boarder8925]

Crap I meant http://www.google.com/linux.

useful wiki application

[rtv]

I wish your comment was on a Wiki, because then I could edit it to remove all those apostrophes.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

This sort of theme is becoming increasingly prevalent these days. Take a look at ESR's recent article on trying to get CUPS to work. The bottom line is, rather than wasting energy writing more HOWTO's to get some impossibly-difficult-to-install software working, how about spending the time making the software easier to install?? Hmmmm? Or is Linux doomed to be used only by elitists?

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[DA-MAN]

Or is Linux doomed to be used only by elitists?

Linux is an OS by geeks, for geeks. 1 size does not fit all. As Linux gets easier and easier to use, it will take n more users of all types, but dont for one second think that it will stop being by geeks or for geeks first.

Which is not to say that software shouldn't be easier to install, just saying that it isn't about elitism.

This is great untill

[miyako]

This seems like a great idea, untill some smartass decides to mask harmful commands as solutions to obscure problems.
Since it looks like anyone can update this thing, what happens when someone sneaks into a solution a command to write morse-code on the hard drive, or some command to rename all the files in /bin so that when you list all the files it does an asciiart of the goatse guy, or just throws in a "sudo rm -rf /" or something.
Not that I don't think this is a good idea, but without some sort of review process I would personally feel nervous about sending some of my more inexperienced friends to the site and having them execute commands all willy nilly.
I know that 99% of the users who would post something would do it out of an honest desire to help, in fact I will probably post a few things that I have had to do as obscure solutions to weird problems myself, but it only takes a single post to a problem that is just commen enough but not too comment to get a lot of people to fsck up their machines.

Re:This is great untill

[jjohnson]

Wikipedia gets enough traffic, and has enough regular users, that all changes are reviewed by at least a couple people, in practice; that's all that's needed to keep vandalism manageable, it appears. On a few obscure pages I've authored, mass deletions and nasty comments were removed within hours; the higher traffic pages are even more monitored, to the extent that 'editing wars' break out over them, requiring editors to lock pages for a period of time to let tempers cool.

So what the linux questions wiki needs for reliability is a critical mass of users; the rest takes care of itself.

Re:Question

[ackthpt]

Microsoft has a knowledgebase as well, but only for troubleshooting, service packs, and development. I've been to their site maybe twice.

I tend to avoid it, it's got lots of reference stuff but is pretty short on examples, which probably explains all the good user supported sites/knowledgebases around the web.

linuxquestions not just linux

[bbowers]

I'm a contributing member of the linuxquestions site, and I personally thing Jeremy (the owner/admin) is doing a wonderful job of keeping the site up to date and adding new things. Most recently they showed their support at linuxworld with other companies and .orgs. THe addition of the wiki will further increase what they're trying to get across. I've found threads on there that I havn't found anywhere else on google or mailing lists, and most everyhting I've needed has a solution. Responses are fast, and the people are very nice, I'd reccomend it to anyone with questions.

Now keep in mind they don't just do linux, theres Solaris forums, Programming forums, AIX, distro forums, and many many more such as hardware forums, networking and a very nice HCL. I guess this is turning into an ad but I'm just trying to help out cause a little bit I guess. You'll find me there as the user Astro

linuxquestions, huh?

[slide-rule]

I dunno if the "wiki" part is anything newer than what I saw a month ago, but after jumping through several account creation / e-mail verification / etc hoops to try to post a detailed, working answer to someone else's problem (the problem and distro which happened to be the same as mine -- and for which no "good" answer had yet been provided), I kept getting denied any ability to actually post a reply to the thread. Tried for several days and gave up. I'm hoping it was a fluke... I know I need answers all the time for things, but the one time I CAN HELP and try to do so, DENIED. Blah.

Then you'll like Wiki

[lawpoop]

The great thing about wiki is that it's very open. If you see redundant or meaningless data, delete it! Yes, you! It's very empowering.

But wait, hold on! Did someone write trollish nonsense all over a beatiful how-to? Just roll back the changes.

If this scares you (and it should, it's very powerful, very new), check out wikipedia.com. It's totally self-policing and very well-kempt. You will quickly move from scared to excited.

wikipedia.org????

[bobsalt]

I went there once, took me 2 days to get out!!

amazing site...

Problem-oriented documentation

[lawpoop]

The problem I see with linux documentation (or any other documentation for complex stuff) is that it's usually not at the right level for me -- too high, too low, etc.

I would like to see documentation that's prolem oriented. It would start with "How do I ...?". It would list the most basic, high level steps. Then, each of those steps is a link to its own "how do I...?". You could then drill down each step that's a problem to you, and find out how to do the step. That way you don't get stuck. Sure, it would take a long time to build, but then you have pretty complete, robust documentation.

wiki vs TLDP

[Trestran]

I have been using Wikipedia for a while and one of the biggest selling point IMO is the great browsing experience. I often find myself actually surfing again by going from hyperlink to hyperlink, trying to soak up all the information, something I have stopped doing a while ago with most other webpages. There is lot of very good, indepth content on there.
TLDP is a bunch of mostly technical articles (HOWTO's, guides, FAQs and man pages) that are very usefull, but don't really form a coherent whole. It would be wonderfull to have a somewhat more encyclopedia oriented linux documentation to consult, that is updated consistently to boot. A encyclopedia aproach also alows you to cover a wide spectrum of topic, from, say, obscure technical details to general *nix design philosophies.
However, wiki's for this type of large projects (like wikipedia) need a certain critical mass of contributors for it to, I would think. While I don't know if this project will be "it", I think a wiki aproach would be a great idea.

Why the opposition to docs or info?

[weeboo0104]

Seriously. I visited the local LUG and was appalled at the attitude some of the older members had whenever a relative newbie or younger kid asked them a question. The boilerplate answer from the "gurus"?
"Just read the man pages".

I tried to hit them up for a simple answer to the nodev, user and suid options in fstab and all I got was "Read the man pages".

I wasn't looking to the answers to everything, only the differences between "user" and "nodev" options and when it is best to use them.

Re:Selective Intelligence

[justMichael]

I think you may be confusing your search engines. I have yet to see any search on google where AdWords has any effect on the actual search results.

Since they are listed down the side of the page and not mixed in with the search results and the "Sponsored Links" at the top, it's kind of hard to mix them up.

And if you can buy better results from google, please let me know. Google surfers convert at a much higher rate than all of the other PPC options.

Another personal favorite...

[virid]

Elite Google

Re:Question

[Welsh Dwarf]

Does it strike anyone as a bit of a negative attribute that you have to have a massive knowledgebase to use your operating system?

The answer is that you don't, the wiki is more aimed at people who just want to find something out about Linux (ie 'How do they read e-mail without Outlook?'), are looking for a good distribution to try, or are curious and want to learn more about it (hence the technical parts)

However, I've always had to rely on poorly-written HOWTOs and other documents to spend three hours just getting a sound card or USB mouse to work under X.

Sounds like your distro isn't that recent (or that you're useing Slack or Debian, in which case the Howtos are to be expected). Modern Distros generally take care of your mouse and sound card in a few seconds while you watch the progress bar

Not to diss you, but Linux just isn't that hard anymore.

MOD PARENT UP, PLEASE

[Karl Cocknozzle]

What you need to know is that main returns int!!!

Quoth my freshman year C Programming professor who said "void main() makes baby Jesus cry." I almost fell out of my chair with glee.

Re:Question

[Xabraxas]

Does it strike anyone as a bit of a negative attribute that you have to have a massive knowledgebase to use your operating system?

You don't need a massive knowledge base to use Linux. The main difference is that documentation for Linux usually covers a lot more than just the kernel. It usually covers a ton of popular programs in addition to the kernel, including two entirely different desktops. Not to mention the fact that you can change so many more parameters in Linux than you can in Windows or MacOSX. For example, it is fairly simple to install another kernel if you want to on most Linux distributions but you also have the ability to compile your own kernel. This will take more documentation than either Windows or OSX but it hasn't made anything more difficult.

Re:Question

[Ganennon]

Since "everyone" is using Windows, it's easy to get help in real life. Also, Swedish highschools force their students to learn the basics of Windows in an obligatory course. It's really supposed to be a general course about computers, but in reality it's all about Windows. Once a not-so-advanced Windows user wants to do something "odd", the lack of a well-known Windows tutorial is apparent. For example, very many (newbie mudders) do not know how to turn on the echo function in Windows telnet. There's lots of tutorials online on how to do this, but few seem to know where to look.

Um, OpenFacts?

[Mike Hicks]

Hmm. The Germany government has been supporting OpenFacts for some time. I guess I've tried to get people interested in that site, but it hasn't gotten very far (in the English version, at least -- the Germans seem to be doing well in the Deutsch version)

The good news for the new project is that all OpenFacts material is public domain, so it's fair to cut-n-paste off that site (well, if there's anything very useful).

Um, and how is this site run by LinuxQuestions independent, exactly? I guess I don't quite understand how that can be the case. Whatever, I guess.

Thoughts from someone who's done it

[Plug]

I don't know how LQ's wiki will end up, but if the answers from questions posted to the forums make their way into Wiki entries and are regularly maintained, then it has potential.

Almost two years ago, a resourceful hacker at our Waikato Linux Users Group set up a Wiki, and it has been a phenomenal success. We'll be surprised how often we google looking for something, and find the Wiki as the first hit!

What did we do differently? For starters, Perry imported the man pages and howtos, meaning people could link to a man page in the Wiki just by naming it (ie fstab(5)). This encourages both reading man pages and editing them, marking them up to be more useful to everyone. Another point is that now you can see which pages (and other man pages) refer to a given page, an invaluable tool that man itself can't provide!

We're thinking of dropping the HOWTOS because it's amost impossible to get changes sent up stream, and our own locally developed content tends to be better and more up to date.

Good luck to the LQ people, but there exist a number of Wikis that have the knowledge growing nicely outside of this. If you're looking for something, come check us out.

Re:Question

[t0ny]

Microsoft has a knowledgebase as well, but only for troubleshooting, service packs, and development. I've been to their site maybe twice.

Ignorance is bliss, maybe? Because you can find out just about anything Microsoft related via Technet. This includes troubleshooting, white papers, documents on best practices, general network design, security, etc.

If you actaully work with MS products, and dont use technet, you are definitely not working smart.

It would be NICE to say you dont need a large database, but it would be pretty ignorant to think that anything could be that way. Auto mechanics, lawyers, doctors, EVERYONE who works on complex matters is going to need a well organized resource to help them out. There is far too many details for someone to think they will know it all.

The only people who seem like they never encounter problems are those who are just good at troubleshooting and using their reference sources.

wiki for source code

[axxackall]

I have a better idea about wiki: use it instead of CVS or on a top of CVS making possible for everyone to submit changes or to roll back the bad code. Mo more waiting when the maintainer has time to check it in - just do it yourself. If it works for open-sourced documents, why can't it work for open-sourced software?